Sunday, May 3, 2015

Symposium of ALD Lab Dresden at SEMICON Europa 6 October 2015

Looking back in the evolution of IC technology, it can be stated
that from the 0.25µm node on, the key for further shrinking was
planarization. This was enabled by the introduction of an emerging
technology, the CMP. Since the 28 nm node it can be observed that, at
least in the front end of line, starting with the FinFET and possibly
continuing with the surrounding gate transistor, the required structures
become more and more three dimensional, while the thickness of the
associated films become extremely thin (gate dielectric, work function
layer, barrier layer). The emerging technology enabling this is Atomic
Layer Deposition (ALD).

ALD is based on self limiting heterogeneous
chemical reactions which allow the fabrication of very thin (sub nm to
few nm) layers with high accuracy (basically atomic layer precision),
extremely well conformality and intrinsically high uniformity even in
batch tools. Although the scientific background of ALD goes far back in
history, ALD for semiconductor processing can still be considered as a
novel technology.

Progress in ALD is associated with tools, but even
more with specifically designed precursors which need to be applied at
optimum conditions of the gas feed system, the process chamber and the
substrate condition. Our workshop, which is organized by the “ALD Lab
Dresden” wants to stimulate discussions between developers of tools,
consumables, as well as applicants of this exciting technology.

The
self limiting behavior of the heterogeneous reaction can however also be
used to remove material from a substrate in an extremely controlled
fashion of atomic dimensions. This process, that can be viewed as the
complement to ALD is called Atomic Layer Etching (ALEt). As for ALD also
ALEt can be a game changer for the semiconductor industry utilizing
surface functionalization and modification similar to those we know in
ALD and resulting in a chemistry-based material removal on the same
atomic level as in ALD – A layer by layer removal.

In general
scaling is thought about to be a shrink in the critical dimensions (CD,
pitch) in the latheral xy-plane, today scaling is also taking place in
the z-direction, i.e., a reduction in the thickness of the film stacks
like the High-k Metal Gate stack. This has resulted in that the
thicknesses of the film stacks of devices today are now routinely
approaching <20 Å nm providing an opportunity for slow and precise
etching by ALEt.

We hope that this new part of the ALD Lab Dresden
Symposium will allow for increased scientific and technological
discussion for enabling ALEt and learning from ALD and related plasma
based processing techniques like Plasma CVD and Reactive Ion Etching.

AGENDA
The 2015 agenda will be posted as soon as possible.

Registration

No pre-registration required but you must register as a visitor, in order to gain access to the venue: